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Tech workers worried about ageism
More than 40 percent of tech workers worry about losing their jobs because of age, a new survey shows.
Jobs site Indeed also found that 18 percent of those who work in the tech industry worry “all the time” about losing their jobs because of ageism.
The release of the survey Thursday comes amid other news about diversity — or lack thereof — in tech workplaces. Often when we report about diversity issues, readers wonder about older workers. The Indeed survey offers insight into the age of the tech workforce: It’s young.
Indeed concluded from surveying more than 1,000 respondents in September that the tech workforce is composed of about 46 percent millennials, with 36 percent of respondents saying the average employee age at their company is 31 to 35, and 17 percent saying that the average worker age at their company is 20 to 30.
What about Generation X and baby boomers? Twentyseven percent of respondents said the average age of employees at their company is 36 to 40, while 26 percent of respondents said the workers at their companies are 40 and older.
“With the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting that 25 percent of workers should be 55 and over by 2019, it’s clear that these numbers don’t reflect the diversity of the population when it comes to age,” Raj Mukherjee, senior vice president of Product at Indeed, writes in a blog post about the survey.
There are lawsuits galore related to the issue. When
USA Today counted last year, 90 age-discrimination lawsuits against top tech companies had been filed since 2012. Over the summer, a judge’s ruling revealed that nearly 300 people have signed on to a class-action age-discrimination lawsuit against Google. Other tech companies that have been accused of of agebased discrimination include Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and more.
The Indeed survey also showed that although some techies who are boomers are expanding their job searches outside Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, the San Jose and San Francisco metro areas are the top two spots for job searches by tech workers of all ages. That paints a different picture than some anecdotal evidence about ageism forcing workers to look outside the tech center of the nation.
The survey also found that Seattle is No. 3 for job-searching millennials and Gen Xers, while Huntsville, Alabama, is No. 3 for baby boomers. Mukherjee attributed that to the city being a space flight hub, with a strong presence by employers such as Boeing and Northrop Grumman there.
The online survey was conducted by a thirdparty research firm, and participants were selected based on their years of experience, with the average respondent working in the tech industry for 15 years and 9 months, Indeed said. — Levi Sumagaysay
Twitter vows to be tougher on abuse
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey vowed last week to do more to combat online abuse, noting that the tech firm will be rolling out stricter rules including for violence and unwanted sexual advances.
The tech firm faced criticism after it temporarily blocked the account of actress Rose McGowan for tweeting a private phone number. Some women started boycotting Twitter and accused the tech firm of inconsistent enforcement of its online rules, an issue that Twitter said it’s working on as well.
On Tuesday, Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council received a glimpse of some of those upcoming changes.
The tech firm plans to permanently suspend accounts that post nude images of people without their consent, especially if the user does so with the intent of harassment, according to an email to the council obtained by Wired and other media outlets. Currently, users who post this content for the first time are asked to delete the tweet and their accounts are temporarily suspended.
Twitter is also planning to broaden the definition of “non-consensual nudity” to include “upskirt images” and “creep shots.”
It’s also cracking down on the glorification of violence, violent groups and unwanted sexual advances. Hate symbols and imagery will be considered sensitive media and handled in a manner similar to graphic violence and adult content.
“We realize that a more aggressive policy and enforcement approach will result in the removal of more content from our service. We are comfortable making this decision, assuming that we will only be removing abusive content that violates our Rules,” Twitter’s head of safety policy wrote in the email. — Queenie Wong
Apple self-driving test car spotted
It’s no secret Apple has been working to build a self-driving hardware system for cars, but a new video apparently caught the hardware in the wild — or more specifically, the South Bay.
MacCallister Higgins, co-founder of South Bay-based self-driving startup Voyage, caught the system built under the codename Project Titan on video.
The system looks like a crown on top of the Lexus model, with one commenter pointing out it is equipped with Light Detection and Ranging sensors and radars.
It is unclear where exactly Higgins caught the self-driving car, but the Central Expressway sign is clearly visible on the top of the video.
Another commenter shared with Higgins his own photo of the selfdriving car in action at an Apple shuttle stop.
Compared to its competitors like Waymo or Higgins’ Voyage, Apple’s self-driving car system looks much bigger and bulkier.
One possible reason for the bulkiness might be that Apple’s computing stack with its graphics processors may be located on the roof, as Higgins pointed out to The Verge. Apple’s competitor models store the computing parts in the trunk.
Apple’s Project Titan has gone through numerous turnovers since it was publicly revealed in 2014.
Hundreds of employees for Project Titan have been reassigned, laid off or voluntarily left over the past year, seventeen of whom started a new startup called Zoox.
Apple received a permit to drive self-driving cars in California in April. Apple CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg in June the Cupertino tech giant will focus on developing self-driving software rather than build an entire car. — Seung Lee